HUME= BBC Documentary on John Hume 3
John Hume,
KCSG (born
18 January 1937) is a former
Irish politician from
Derry, Northern Ireland. He was a founding member of the
Social Democratic and Labour Party, and was co-recipient of the
1998 Nobel Peace Prize, with
David Trimble.
He was the second leader of the Social Democratic and Labour Party (
SDLP), a position he held from
1979 until
2001. He has served as a
Member of the European Parliament and a
Member of Parliament for
Foyle, as well as a member of the
Northern Ireland Assembly.
He is regarded as one of the most important figures in the recent political history of
Ireland and one of the architects of the
Northern Ireland peace process there. He is also a recipient of the
Gandhi Peace Prize and the
Martin Luther King Award, the only recipient of the three major
peace awards. In
2010 he was named "
Ireland's Greatest" in a public poll by Irish national broadcaster
RTÉ to find the greatest person in Ireland's history. In
2012,
Pope Benedict XVI made
Hume a
Knight Commander of the
Papal Order of
St. Gregory the Great.
Hume was active in the
Nationalist Party in the early
1960s, but resigned in 1964, following the disinclination of many in the party to work with the
National Political Front.
Hume became an
Independent Nationalist member of the
Parliament of Northern Ireland in
1969 at the height of the civil rights campaign. He was elected to the Northern Ireland Assembly in
1973, and served as
Minister of Commerce in the short-lived power-sharing government in
1974. He was elected to the
Westminster Parliament in
1983.
In
October 1971 he joined four
Westminster MPs in a 48-hour hunger strike to protest at the internment without trial of hundreds of suspected
Irish republicans.
State papers that have been released under the
30 year rule that an Irish diplomat 8 years later in 1979 believed John Hume supported the return of internment, however the SDLP have strenuously denied this.In
1977, Hume challenged a regulation under the Civil Authorities (
Special Powers) Act (
Northern Ireland) 1922 which allowed any soldier to disperse an assembly of three or more people.
Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland,
Lord Lowry held that the regulation was
Ultra Vires under
Section 4
Government of Ireland Act 1920 which forbade the Parliament of Northern Ireland to make laws in respect of the army.
A founding member of the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), he succeeded
Gerry Fitt as its leader in 1979. He has also served as one of Northern Ireland's three
Members of the European Parliament and has served on the faculty of
Boston College, from which he received an honorary degree in
1995.
Hume was directly involved in 'secret talks' with the
British government and
Sinn Féin, in effort to bring Sinn Féin to the discussion table openly. The talks are speculated to have led directly to the
Anglo-Irish Agreement in
1985.
However the vast majority of unionists rejected the agreement and staged a massive and peaceful public rally in
Belfast City Centre to demonstrate their distaste. Many republicans and nationalists rejected it also, as they had seen it as not going far enough.Hume, however, continued dialogue with both governments and Sinn Féin. The "Hume-Adams process" eventually delivered the
1994 IRA ceasefire which ultimately provided the relatively peaceful backdrop against which the
Good Friday agreement was brokered.
ume is credited with being the thinker behind many of the recent political developments in Northern Ireland, from the power-sharing
Sunningdale Agreement to the Anglo-Irish Agreement and the
Belfast Agreement. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1998 alongside the then-leader of the
Ulster Unionist Party, David Trimble.
When David Trimble became
First Minister it was expected that Hume would take the role of his deputy, being leader of the second largest party, the SDLP.
Instead this role was handed to
Seamus Mallon, also of the SDLP. Some political journalists cited a bad working relationship between Hume and Trimble despite collecting the
Nobel prize with him.